I don’t mean to sidetrack the thread but I don’t know the answer to your question so my TINY mind quickly wandered to thinking about who are the green jersey contenders this year?
I keep thinking that Thor Hushovd is a big contender along with Bennati. I am not sure if Robbie has it this year although his stage win this week has me thinking he will mix it up a bit. Zabel will have more than a few top 3 finishes especially since poor Milram needs to do something this year. Who else is there? Will High Road, I mean Team Columbia have a sprinter for the tour as I assume Cav won’t be there. I realize this is early speculation but since I can’t even begin to figure out the Maillot Pois Rouges yet this will have to keep me going.

Ain’t what it used to be. The lack of people really giving it a go anymore kinda makes it just another filler competition. Personally I could care less, a stage win trumps a green jersey without a stage win any day. For Benna it would be something I guess. But the fact that Freire thinks it is not worth worrying about takes it down a notch in my book. When the world’s most gifted finisher doesn’t care, why should I.

In a day or two I plan on writing a post that tangentially hits at what you are getting at. I agree that a points jersey ain’t worth much to a top rider and in that sense the “history Benna may be making is more of a trivial nature than a, “OH MY GOD!!!! THAT”S AMAZING!!!!” type of thing.

But what I find interesting is that if you look at the VDS scoring system you get what seems to me an accurate placement of its importance. Looking at that you can see why Freire chose the Worlds (worth 250 points) over the points jersey (worth 120 points). Obviously I have it backwards but the VDS scoring is trying to match the importance riders place on various races and in this case I think it does pretty well in ranking a points jersey of a grand tour slightly below a “Best of the Rest” competition- and if you win two points jerseys you got a load of VDS points equal to winning a top classic race. (All three points jerseys in a single year would roughly equal a monument win.) Makes sense to me as that would show a consistency as a sprinter over a whole year.

I stopped reading there.

But I believe I need a ruling: Is it or is it not required to include a photo when posting about Benna? I believe it is.

I dig this sort of thing. Thanks :-)

He’s already among a small number of active riders who have won stages in all three grand tours, thanks to this year’s Giro wins.

but who are the other two to have won the points competion in all three Grand Tours? (the Wiki link didn’t work)?

Answer can be found here.

Great trivia find, and along with Gavia, I can’t get enough of this kind of stuff. Cycling Revealed’s Winter Trivia is a blast. Look out PdC, I’m gunning for the top spot this year…

we’ll have to assemble a “Best all time Sprinters crashes.” Abdujaparov and Jalabert would figure prominently from the Tour. 2 of the ugliest crashes of all time.

The funny thing about Abdu’s is he did it all on his own and crashed himself :-)

the exploding pinwheel! Watch the left side of your screen at about 55 seconds in. Truly spectacular.